Sunday 19 July 2020

A day of rescues!

Hello

Our customary outing to Harrington Airfield this morning was made a little more interesting when I found a rather bedraggled Common Buzzard on the ground in a field and seemingly unable to fly. After bringing it back home and giving it the run of the utility room it dried off and looked a little better. I whizzed out in my car to find some road kill for it but the usual spots with rabbit casualties were free of corpses so prime beef and combed dog hair (for roughage) was offered up and ignored. The buzzard demonstrated that it might be able to fly a little and smashed one of Eleanor's new Pyrex dishes with it's flapping! After allowing it more space in the lounge and seeing that it could definitely commit to several wing flaps our raptor friend was driven back to Harrington and successfully released! In the meantime a Starling managed to fall down the chimney at home and had to be extracted by removing the gas fire and successfully released so for some reason Sunday 19th July was very much a day of rescues! The dogs will eat well tonight with the snubbed beef steak!

A 'reeling' Grasshopper Warbler was again near Bunker One at Harrington, a Meadow Pipit may be a wanderer from the the small Brampton Valley breeding population as opposed to an early autumnal migrant and at least two young Ravens were about. A first summer Common Gull over Hanging Houghton was the first one I've seen in the county since the spring. Fiona's moth trap at Hanging Houghton caught plenty of specimens overnight and it took her the morning to properly identify and catalogue them all.

Steve's daily early morning visit to Stanwick Pits coincided with eleven Black-tailed Godwits sharing the main lake with a Redshank, a Green Sandpiper and a Common Sandpiper and then two more Black-tailed Godwits flying through.

Adrian's list of birds at Hollowell Reservoir included the Ruddy Shelduck, a Great White Egret, an Osprey, three Dunlin, two Common Sandpipers, a Redshank, a Little Ringed Plover, a Yellow-legged Gull and a Raven.

Birds to the north of the causeway at Pitsford Reservoir this afternoon included two drake Red-crested Pochards and an adult Yellow-legged Gull. A Birdguides report of a Honey Buzzard was of an individual passing north over Islip at 5.10pm.

The singing male Willow Tit photographed poorly in the Brampton Valley yesterday evening appears to be bearing a ring and is suspected to be the same individual ringed at Brixworth earlier this year (and still the only individual I have encountered anywhere in the county during 2020). Is anybody else out there seeing them?

A pair of Spotted Flycatchers at Lamport Hall were accompanying at least three fledged juveniles this afternoon.

Regards

Neil M

Gatekeepers or Hedge Browns.

Marsh Tit.

Elephant Hawk-moth.

Ruby Tiger.

Poplar Hawk-moth.

Bufftip.


Common Buzzard.

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